


Theoretically

by bloodredcherries



Series: Sharon/Richard Series [1]
Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Community: babysitters100, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodredcherries/pseuds/bloodredcherries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richie Spier called her a snob, and she certainly wasn't one! Sharon Porter makes the decision to go to Stoneybrook High instead of Stoneybrook Day and changes her life forever</p>
            </blockquote>





	Theoretically

Sharon Porter decided to go to Stoneybrook High School instead of Stoneybrook Day School out of a sense of self-preservation. She knew, rather logically, that she wasn't smart enough to go to such an accelerated college-preparatory high school, even though Kathy McGuire and Marjorie Brewer were planning on attending, but after her disastrous experience at Stoneybrook Academy, she'd had had enough.

For the first time in her life, her parents are disappointed in her, but she doesn't care.

She doesn't take the bus to SHS, there isn't one from McLelland Road, even though Stoneybrook Day has one, and her parents refuse to drive her, so she walks. On her way past, Kathy and Marjorie and their other friends whisper to one another, and she just knows they're talking about her. She can't help being distracted and scatterbrained and she can't help that she's not as smart as them, even though she can't explain it.

She is a Porter, and, theoretically, the Porters are always perfect.

***

Richie Spier thinks that she is a snob, and she hates him for it. Just because she lives in the wealthy part of town and because she's friends with the Brewers and McGuires (and she isn't, really, Marjorie's starting to become most obnoxious and Kathy hasn't spoken to her since she told her off for making fun of Miyoshi's older sister and saying a most awful racial slur that isn't even factual because Miyoshi's family is Japanese) and because her father is rude to his because his Playboys are sometimes late certainly doesn't make her a snob! She made fudge for the maid one Christmas and gave some to Mr. Spier as well because he's nice to her!

How dare he call her a snob?! It's so terribly rude!

She even thinks he's sort of cute!

She joins the Young Republicans group at SHS because Richie belongs to them, and because she knows that her parents are republicans, even though she really can't focus on politics for very long because she gets so confused.

They start a tentative friendship.

She tells him about how Marjorie and Kathy and the others made fun of her for going to the Resource Room, and he tells her about how his mother isn't the town drunk, but that she is sick, and they reach an understanding. She lets him tutor her in English, which she desperately needs, and she gets him a job at Bellairs, where Marjorie's brother Watson worked before going to work for Unity.

They share a kiss against their shared locker their sophomore year. She's a cheerleader, somewhat popular, and he's still a bit of a nerd, but they love each other, and she's sure that's all that matters.

Miyoshi agrees, but her older sister, Rioko, says something that Sharon can't understand about class differences and social implications or something (she's very smart, nearly a genius, and she considers Sharon to be somewhat of a friend after the incident with Kathy), but she's sure her parents will love him.

Rioko is right. Sharon is wrong.

***

Even Marjorie doesn't like him. Her supposed best friend.

“I don't understand what you see in him, Sharry. Watson is available, and Daddy will make him head of Unity someday. But no, you have to have your heart set on Richard Spier. Did you know his father delivers our mail?”  
“If I wanted to go out with Watson, I would have. I don't see why you have to make such a big deal out of me dating Richie, Marjorie. You just don't understand.”  
“It's just that he's poor, Sharry. He has no money! You're a Porter, Sharry. I wish you'd start acting like one.”  
“What is that supposed to mean?”  
“Well, you know, you have been all weird since you transferred to SHS. It's bizarre. I wish that you hadn't left Stoneybrook Day, Sharry. We're supposed to be best friends. Forever.”  
“I'm still your best friend, Marjorie. Just because I go to Stoneybrook High now doesn't mean that's changed.”  
“But you want to date that-eugh. I don't know how you could stand the thought of parading him around society functions!”  
“I don't care about any of that. I love Richie. You won't even give him a chance.”

Sharon Porter was not a snob.

“Why should I?”  
“Because I am your best friend, Marjorie.”  
“But he's a Spier! His mother is the town drunk!”  
“His mother is ill, Marjorie! You wouldn't know about that though, would you?”  
“Ill, drunk, it's all the same. You are dating the mailman's son.”

However, Marjorie Brewer was a snob, and was trying the very last bit of Sharon's patience.

“So what? I don't care. And neither should you.”

Sharon Porter flounced away from her best friend, not even looking back.

***

There was nothing she hated more than snobs.

She loved Richie, really, truly loved him, and nobody could see that. Not her parents, not her grandparents, not any of her friends, even the ones that went to Stoneybrook High School and not Stoneybrook Day School, no one. Her parents were talking about sending her away,

She hated it.

Honestly it wasn't like she was pregnant or anything.

She knew Richie was finishing up his shift at Bellairs, so she walked through downtown Stoneybrook to the department store, trying not to cry. She just wanted to be with him. To have him hold her close and tell her everything was going to be okay, that her parents would come around, that applying to college in hot disgusting California wouldn't be that bad, in only the way he knew how. She felt like a little kid.

Her father had told her she was being a baby about this, but she didn't care.

Richie wasn't interested in their money, unlike all of the guys her parents and Marjorie wanted to date. (Nor was he Watson Brewer, who was a very sweet guy but really not her type at all.) He loved her for who she was-the real Sharon, not the fake act she put on at home or at Marjorie's precious “society events”.

She sat on the bench in front of the store, smoking a cigarette while she waited. Her mother, dear, dear, dear Rita, had implied she was gaining weight. Honestly, just because she actually ate now and again because she was happy? Or, more likely, a bit depressed? Perhaps she shouldn't have hidden all that candy in her room like Miyoshi and her older sister Rioko did, but she'd had to learn something from Rioko's math tutoring sessions, and math certainly hadn't been it.

So, she sulked. She couldn't believe her stupid friends from Stoneybrook Day cared so much about bullshit appearances. Richie loved her. And she loved him. Wasn't that enough?

She chewed on her varnish covered nails, out of nervousness.

This wasn't going to be a happy date, after all. They were going to the library and he was going to help her with her college applications, none of which were to places in Connecticut, none of which were near him.

She started to cry, and Sharon Porter never cried.

She didn't want to go to school without any of her friends, she couldn't handle it. As it was she was so distracted during every class it was through some near-divine miracle that she was passing them all, even though she spent two periods a day in the Resource Room, where she'd met Miyoshi, who also had trouble in school. Her parents thought that they were on drugs, conveniently forgetting that she'd always had trouble in school, even at easy-as-pie Stoneybrook Academy.

She wasn't smart, like her cousin Ed, who lived off in Chicago, with his father, while his mother, Tabitha, lived next door to the Brewers, and had become most eccentric since their divorce.

Rita and Charles didn't like to visit her, but Sharon sometimes did, and Tabitha liked Richie, which made her very happy.

She cried into her sweater sleeve because she knew that this was the beginning of the end. She knew that once she went away to college she'd be expected to forget him, and she knew that it wasn't fair to expect him to wait around for her, though she didn't want to admit that out loud. She cried loud, noisy, tears, not caring that she was ruining the cashmere she'd used to love. Things like that didn't matter anymore.

“Hey, look, it's Marjorie's public school friend! Too good for us at the Day School, Sharry?”  
“Leave me alone!”  
“Aw, why, so you can cry your little eyes out like a baby?”  
“Shut up, Kathy! Why don't you go hang 'round Ted like a lost little puppy? Maybe one day he'll give you the time of day!”  
“At least I know where I belong! Not hanging around with people below my stature, like you!”  
“What's that supposed to mean?”  
“What do you think?”

Kathy McGuire turned on her heels, the group of giggling SDSers she'd used to be friends with at her feet, and they all flounced away. She, in a most unbecoming display of immaturity, stuck her tongue out at them.

“Shar? Are you okay?”

She smiled at Richie (the only one whom she liked to call her by a nickname) her tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes betraying her.

“Sorry, Richie, I'm just a bit upset. That's all.”  
“You want to get an ice cream first, or something?”  
“That would be nice.”

He wasn't as poor as her friends and family made out, and it made her so mad that they judged him just because his mother acted a bit weird and because his father delivered the mail. She had half a mind to speak to Mr. Spier about stopping delivery of her father's Playboys, just to spite him, but she didn't want to get him in trouble.

They walked to the ice cream parlor, Richie carrying her bag and holding her hand, and they sat in a booth near the front. Normally they sat closer to the back, but she'd given up caring about what her supposed friends thought about their relationship. Or her parents.

She lit a cigarette, offering one to him, and he took it, lighting his with an old book of matches.

She ordered a shake, while he ordered an ice cream sundae, and she took a drag of her cigarette.

“Richie, I don't want to go.”  
“I know, Shar. I know.”  
“I won't-I can't, Richie.”  
“You can, Shar. You're smart, I know you are. Even though you and Miyoshi spend all your time in the Resource Room sneaking candy and chips instead of studying.”

He was joking, and she managed a giggle.

“I don't want to go to California. People are weird out there. They're hippies!”  
“Shar, you don't like when people judge me, do you?”  
“No, Richie, but there's nothing wrong with you!”  
“But you didn't know that when we were freshman, did you? When we were assigned the English project?”  
“No, but Richie, you were different.”  
“It's the same basic principle, though, Shar. You shouldn't pre-judge them.”

She sighed, knowing he was telling the truth.

If Sharon Porter was going to claim to not be a snob, she'd have to act like it.

***

Sharon burst into tears when she saw Mr. Spier deliver the day's mail, knowing that it contained another awful acceptance letter to another awful school in California, where her parents were insisting she go. Even Marjorie's parents were letting her go to Stoneybrook Community College, and she'd gone to Stoneybrook Day, and it just wasn't fair! (There were, of course, rumors that the Brewers had had to donate a fair sum of money to the college to gain her admittance, which wasn't really surprising to her, but she daren't say it out loud.) Even Kathy had gotten into some college in New York City, where she'd always wanted to go, though she was only attending there because Ted Kilbourne was a student in their business school. Her Richie had been accepted to Stoneybrook University, on a full scholarship, and she'd been so proud of him. It had been his dream to go to college.

He wanted to be a lawyer, like Charles was. (She had been referring to her parents as Rita and Charles since they'd announced over Christmas break that they were forcing her to pick whichever school in stupid dumb California accepted her. She'd gone up to her room, screamed into her pillow, and devoured three chunky bars with the sound of the Beatles “Please Please Me” (not even caring that it had once been her mother's record) drowning the hidden activity out.) She was so proud of him.

She wished more than anything that she could be as dumb as Marjorie, because at least then she wouldn't have to leave.

She smiles at Mr. Spier as she collects the mail, wincing as she reads the return address label on the biggest envelope.

UCLA.

***

Rita and Charles agreed to let Richie drive her to the airport. They've already mailed all of her belongings to California, and she hasn't been speaking to them since some point in June, so it's of no loss to any of them. They think that they've won.

They think that this will be the last time she and Richie see each other, but Sharon knows it won't be. Sharon knows that she'll still see him on visits home, and that they'll write, and that their breakup (which she knows will be inevitable) won't be the end of their friendship, despite what her parents hope.

Richie takes the slow way to the airport.

She almost cries.

She would cry except she's been crying since she figured out that she would have to go to UCLA (which was the least offensive of schools to Sharon 'Young Republican' Porter), and she doesn't have any tears left. She wishes that she could change the facts, the cold, hard facts, but she can't.

Shar'n'Richie are, for all intents and purposes, over.

Her parents, her fucking fake friends Marjorie and Kathy, the people at the country club, they got what they wanted.

She's to be out in California, land of the palm trees and sunshine.

And he's to be here, in Stoneybrook, the only place she'll ever love.

They kiss goodbye at the airport, and he whispers in her ear.

“You are not a snob, Shar. I'll always love you.”  
“Love you too, Richie.”

She writes him a letter on the plane, promising to never let him go.

Sharon Porter was once a snob, but she will never ever be one again.


End file.
